Well, the Government has not agreed to review the agreement. What they have said is that they will look into our objections and also examine the implications of the Hyde Act, which has been passed by the US Congress. For that a Committee has been set up. All that we have got is that they have said that they will not proceed to operationalize the agreement till the Committee finds a viable solution. So, to that extent they have agreed that they will not immediately go to the next step of approaching the International Atomic Energy Agency for the safeguards agreement. So, there is some time for the government to reconsider some of these issues.

2. The opposition in West Bengal is saying that the Left suffers from a historic anti-American syndrome and your opposition to the nuclear deal revolves around it. What is your view?

No, this has nothing to do with being ‘anti-American’. It is to do with being ‘pro-Indian’. For a country like India, do we need to become dependent on the world’s biggest power to develop our country? America has said that they will help India to become a world power. Do we need the help of America to become a developed country and world power? I think we should stand on our own feet and have equal relations. A relation based on equal status with United States and the other big countries in the world is what is desirable.

3. Looking in retrospect, would this have been a serious enough issue to bring down the government? The media thought that the Left has almost reached the breaking point.

There is definitely a major confrontation with the government because as far as the Communist Party of India (Marxist) is concerned, it is not possible for us to support a government, which will enter into a strategic alliance binding India to United States and having a Nuclear Cooperation Agreement, which will be harming India in future. So, we cannot have the government going ahead with such an agreement. So, in that sense, there is a crisis. Some steps are being taken to resolve the crisis and we hope that after the debate in Parliament on the nuclear agreement, when it will be clear that the majority in the Parliament is against this agreement, the government will heed the voice of the Parliament and public opinion.

I think that is a key question. The way the government is talking about Nuclear power as vital for our overall energy requirements and energy security, I think, is basically a flawed argument. The per unit cost of power produced from nuclear power plants based on imported nuclear fuel and reactors is around double the cost of power generation from our coal-based power plants. So at what cost are you going to import nuclear reactors and fuel? The government has not come out with any techno- economic survey or analysis of what will be the cost of nuclear power. What we are saying is, we need nuclear power, but nuclear power can make only a small contribution to the overall energy basket. Moreover, building a nuclear power plant with imported nuclear reactors will mean installing capacity for producing only one third of power that can be produced by installing a coal based thermal power plant with the same amount of money. For example, rather than producing 40000 megawatts of power through nuclear power plants based on imported reactors by spending around Rs. 12 crore per megawatts, we can produce thrice that amount of power (around 120000 megawatts) by spending the same amount of money on coal based thermal power plants. So the question is, whether the country can afford it. We have the example of Enron. When the American company Enron started producing power it costed Rs 5 to Rs 7 per unit, which bankrupted Maharashtra State Electricity Board, as we all know. So the question is whether you can make nuclear power central to your energy security. We say that the energy security argument is being used now only to justify a strategic alliance with the US.

5. Is the Left opposing the 123 agreement in its entirety? Or is the objection mainly directed against Article 14, which allows either party to terminate the agreement in one-year notice?

There are many clauses in the 123 Agreement, which are objectionable. It is not just Article 14. Our point is, this that provisions of the US national law, which is the Hyde Act, is built into the bilateral 123 agreement. The 123 agreement refers to national or domestic laws in two or three places. The American side is obviously bound by the Hyde Act. We have been arguing since the passage of the Hyde Act that many of the assurances that were made by the Prime Minister in Parliament have been nullified because of this national law passed in the US. So our real target is not this text of the 123 agreement. We are saying, unless some of the provisions of the Hyde Act are not changed, or are not operated upon, we cannot protect our interests. We cannot separate the bilateral 123 agreement from the Hyde Act.

6. Pranab Mukherjee says that the Hyde Act is not India’s concern. He has been quoted to have said that it will not affect our strategic program and it is being said that nowhere in the 123 agreement the word ‘testing’ is mentioned. How do you react?

There are many technical aspects, which I don’t want to go into. But I want to make one thing clear. The problem is not that the Hyde Act will apply to India. The problem is that the Hyde Act applies to the US. Since this a bilateral agreement between the US and India, and if the US is bound by the Hyde Act, it will behave as per the Hyde Act, irrespective of what the Indian interpretation of the 123 agreement says. The 123 is an agreement between two countries, where one country [the US] is bound by its own national law and the other [India] does not have any such law. We have no such law, neither are we in a position to have such a law because we will be the recipient of nuclear equipments from the US. They [the US] also have the right to terminate the agreement as per the 123 text.

As far as no reference to ‘testing’ goes, it implies that the US may terminate the agreement even if we do not test. They [the US] can terminate the agreement if they don’t like our foreign policy. Tomorrow if we remain friendly with Iran, the US might say ‘we are terminating this agreement’ because our approach towards Iran is not congruent with theirs [the US]. So the fact is that the termination clause is an open one: it can be terminated for various reasons. They [the US] don’t have to give you any reason. They [the US] are now asking us to cut off relationship with Iran. If we don’t, then the US Congress can pressurize a future American president to terminate the agreement. So, it is not only testing. They [the US] can give any ground for termination.

7. The Left did not support the nuclear tests of 1998 in India. So how does testing matter today?

It is not a question of nuclear tests alone. If we give in to their [the US] pressure now, we will have to get used to continuous pressurization on their part [the US] to follow the American line in foreign policies.

I think that the pro-American tilt, which you are talking about, concerns a very small section of people, even in the urban area. That is a small section of people who have benefited from the pro-American and pro-imperialist economic policies that are being pursued. They are a very small section. We are confident that when we take the entire issue of a strategic alliance with the US to the common people, which we are going to do throughout the month of September, when we explain the link between nuclear cooperation with the US with the harmful economic policies which the US is pushing, its pressure for military collaboration and arms purchases, people would understand. Many of these issues affect the daily lives of the people. If you have American nuclear reactors today, you will also have to have Wal-Mart tomorrow. You will have to allow American companies taking over your banking, insurance and various other sectors. Monsanto will be dictating terms to our farmers. Indians will have to spend crores of rupees on purchasing American weapons and fighter aircrafts. Besides the nuclear cooperation agreement, there are a whole range of agreements that we have entered with the US, like the Defence Framework Agreement, the Strategic Economic Partnership, the Agricultural Knowledge Initiative etc., which would affect every aspect of our economy and society. Having a shared understanding with the US on democracy is not possible for India. We shall take these issues to the people and I am sure that they will understand that it is not just about the nuclear deal; it is a much more serious matter.

Interview by Shamayita Chakraborty. Kolkata, 31st August 2007.